California
These Southern California House races are still undecided. See election results updates
What to Know
- Competitive House races remain undecided in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
- The Southern California contests could play roles in determining the balance of power in the US House of Representatives.
- Adding to the uncertainty, several California Republicans are representing districts that President Biden won in 2020.
Five of six key U.S. House election races in Southern California that could tip the balance of power remain undecided nearly one week after Election Day.
Over the weekend, more ballots were counted in competitive House races, including one separated by 1 percentage point, in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
As of Monday morning, control over the U.S. House of Representatives still hangs in the balance. There are a handful House of races across the country yet to be called.
Republicans were projected Wednesday to win control of the Senate.
While Democrats hold every major statewide office and outnumber registered Republicans in California 2 to 1, there are pockets of strong support for Republican candidates in parts of Southern California. Adding to the uncertainty, several California Republicans are representing districts that President Biden won in 2020, making the region a wildcard player in the makeup of the U.S. House.
All 435 U.S. House seats are up for election in 2024. Entering Election Day, Republicans had 220 members to Democrats’ 212. There were three vacancies.
Scroll to see results updated Monday morning.
Democrat Whitesides holds slim lead
George Whitesides, the former CEO of Virgin Galactic, held a slim lead in this district north of Los Angeles, according to results early Monday.
Rep. Mike Garcia won the seat in 2022 by 6 percentage points over Democrat Christy Smith and held on to advance from the March primary. Whitesides finished second in the primary and had 50.9-percent of the votes counted early Monday in one of five California districts that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Garcia stood at 49.1 percent.
It’s a district that favored Republican Brian Dahle by a slight margin over Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2020 gubernatorial election.
Garcia, who served in the U.S. navy and U.S. Navy Reserve, was first elected in a special election in 2020. The special election was called after Democrat Katie Hill, who defeated a Republican in 2018, resigned due to a sex scandal. He won re-election over Smith in 2022, 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent.
Whitesides served as NASA chief of staff in the Obama Administration.
The district in northern Los Angeles County includes Santa Clarita, Lancaster, Palmdale and other high desert communities.
Republican Rep. Young Kim defends House seat
GOP Rep. Young Kim will returns for a third term after winning the district two years ago by 14 percentage points. NBC News projected Kim as the winner in her race against former fire captain and union president Joe Kerr last week.
Kim is one of three Korean American women who were the first elected to Congress in 2020, served the California Assembly for two years. Kerr was unsuccessful in his 2022 bid for a state Senate seat and the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2018.
As of Monday, Kim had 55.9 percent of the vote to Kerr’s 44.1 percent.
The district includes parts of Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties The communities of Aliso Viejo, Corona, Chino Hills, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Tustin and Villa Park in the 40th District.
President Biden won the district by a slim margin in 2020.
President Biden won the district by a slim margin in 2020. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district by a margin of 38 percent to 34 percent, as of September.
Republican Rep. Calvert stretches narrow lead
Republican Rep. Ken Calvert held a nearly 3-percentage point lead early Monday in the race for the Riverside County Congressional district.
The races is a rematch between the long-time representative and Democrat Will Rollins. The two were separated by less than 5 percentage points in the 2022 election.
Calvert is the longest-serving Republican in the California congressional delegation, having held his seat in this district east of Los Angeles since 1993. Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, gets another chance to unseat the incumbent in November.
Of note: Palm Springs has been added to this district since the last election.
The district also includes Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Rancho Mirage, most of Corona and Palm Desert.
GOP Rep. Steel leads in tight race for 45th House district
Republican Rep. Michelle Steel was leading Democrat Derek Tran — 51.1 percent to 48.9 percent — early Monday in Orange County’s 45th Congressional District.
Steel easily advanced from the primary in her race against four Democrats, including second-place primary finisher Derek Tran, a veteran and civil rights attorney. Tran had only 16 percent of the vote to Steel’s commanding 55 in the crowded primary.
This district supported Joe Biden for president in 2020, but voted for Republican John Cox over Gavin Newsom in the 2018 gubernatorial election. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, but Steel defeated a Democrat in 2020 before winning re-election in 2022.
District 45, which re-elected Steel with 52.4% of the vote in 2022, includes parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties. The district includes Garden Grove, Westminster, Buena Park and Artesia. Parts of Brea, Lakewood, Fullerton and Yorba Linda are in the district that’s shaped like a C and wraps around Anaheim.
Democrat Min takes slim lead in House District 47
This once solidly Republican district that stretches from Huntington and Newport beaches on the Orange County coast and inland to Irvine is the only open House seat among California’s most competitive races. The seat was vacated by Katie Porter, who was running for Senate, but did not advance from the March primary and is not seeking re-election.
Scott Baugh, who lost to Porter by less than 4 percentage points in 2022, and Democratic state Sen. Dave Min are in a tight race with Min holding a 1-percentage point lead early Monday.
Baugh won the primary with 32 percent of the vote. Min was second at just under 26 percent with the remaining votes divided among other candidates.
The district had been represented by Republicans from the time it was created until Porter defeated then-Rep. Mimi Walters in 2018.
Democrat Rep. Levin leading in defense of 49th District House seat
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Levin held 51.7 percent of the vote in his bid to defend his seat in this Southern California district that includes portions of Orange and San Diego counties. Republican Matt Gunderson, a car dealership owner who failed in a bid for state Senate in 2022, was at 48.3 percent.
Voters chose Levin in 2018 to replace longtime Republican Darrell Issa, who has since returned to Congress in a neighboring district. Levin has since been re-elected twice — by six points in 2020 and 5 points in 2022.
Cities in the district include Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas and the southern Orange County communities of San Clemente, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Niguel and Ladera Ranch.
California
California Islamic calligraphy artist preserves ancient tradition during Arab American Heritage Month
As Arab American Heritage Month is celebrated, one Northern California artist is keeping the centuries-old tradition of Islamic calligraphy alive, one carefully measured stroke at a time.
Sehar Shahzad is a student calligrapher. Before starting any project, Shahzad said “one of the first things that calligraphers learn is how to cut their pens.”
Her tools must be in pristine condition.
“Your instruments are just as important as anything else in this art,” she said.
Shahzad said that as a young girl growing up in Toronto, she took up Islamic calligraphy while reflecting on her religion.
“It’s not like I’d never seen it before, but it was my first time kind of trying it,” she said. “And there’s no other way to say it except that I just fell in love with it.”
Now married with three children, Islamic calligraphy is very much part of her life.
“I remember thinking that this isn’t something that I just want to learn for fun,” she said. “I really want to be able to master it.”
Shahzad said that every angle and curve follows strict geometric rules and is measured with dots.
“For example, this letter here was just a little bit too long, so we use these nuqtas to help us guide and understand how long that letter should be,” she said.
Like the Arabic language, Islamic calligraphy is read from right to left. Its bold simplicity requires precision and a deep understanding of proportion.
“When you’re creating a composition, it’s not only about the letter itself,” Shahzad said. “It’s about composition as a whole and making sure that everything balances together.”
Even though she’s still mastering her form, Shahzad’s work is featured in the prayer room of a Muslim cemetery in Napa and in the domes of mosques in San Jose, Hayward, and San Francisco.
Still, she considers her work on paper the most special.
“A form of meditation, a form of worship, requires focus, requires discipline, really brings me to a different space,” Shahzad said. “And I think that’s what I love most.”
Proving that in this fast-paced world, this millennia-long tradition is far from disappearing.
Shahzad’s work will be featured at the upcoming Light Upon Light art exhibit at the Tarbiya Institute in Roseville from April 24-26.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Tuesday highlighted what he called historic progress in the state’s fight against gun violence.
“California has achieved something historic with the lowest rates of firearm deaths, suicides and homicides on record,” he said during a press conference.
According to Bonta, in 2024, California saw the lowest numbers of firearm-related deaths since 1968. That also drove the state’s overall homicide rate to its lowest level on record in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, Bonta’s office said.
However, Bonta warned lawmakers that those gains could be at risk without continued investment.
“This progress is fragile,” he said. “It was driven in part by significant investments that are now declining or disappearing, and without continued and increased investment, we risk losing it.”
Bonta urged policymakers to continue advancing gun violence prevention efforts and education initiatives.
To learn more, click here.
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California
California lawmaker introduces bill to protect wildlife from euthanasia, create coexistence program
A Southern California state senator has proposed a new law that would prevent euthanasia in the state’s wildlife just a month after a mother bear was put down for swiping at a woman in Monrovia, feet away from where her two cubs were located.
The legislation, SB 1135, which was introduced by Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas), calls for the establishment of a state program that promotes the coexistence with wildlife and codifies a wolf-livestock coexistence and compensation program. The move comes two years after funding for a similar wildlife coexistence program expired.
“We can and must responsibly support people and wild animals to exist in a California where we are all under growing pressures and cumulative threats like extreme heat, frequent drought and intense wildfires that animals respond to by moving in search of resources to survive,” Sen. Blakespear said in a statement. “That means investing in science-based, situation-specific, proactive strategies to minimize negative interactions and prevent escalation to conflicts that pose risks for people and animals. SB 1135 proposes a program to better protect people, wildlife and communities.”
The proposed coexistence program, which would be allocated nearly $50 million through the state’s 2026-27 budget, would build on the previous version, which deployed trained regional human-wildlife conflict staff around the state. The absence was noted by CDFW leaders during a state Assembly meeting in January, according to Blakespear.
“Over the last five years, wildlife incident reports logged by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) increased by 31 percent and calls, emails and field contacts rose by 58 percent,” Blakespear’s proposal says.
She noted the recent headline across the state, including “Blondie,” the Monrovia mother bear who was captured and put down by wildlife officials in March after it swiped at a woman near the home it was living under with its two cubs.
The home in question belongs to Richard Franco. He, along with many other Monrovia residents, has documented his encounters with bears over the years, even setting up a system of trail cameras to track the bears’ movements.
“Getting to know her, you could see what a devoted mother she was,” Franco said. “She was always building a nest.”
Read more: Orphaned bear cubs taken to San Diego for care after mom is euthanized for attacking people
Franco and many of his neighbors were angered upon learning that CDFW officials had euthanized Blondie after her capture, which they credited to the fact that she had swiped at the woman days earlier and another person in 2025.
“Forcing them out, and then euthanizing the mom was just traumatic for us,” said one Monrovia couple. “It was just tragic, and there was no need for it; it was completely unnecessary.”
Situations like this are what caught Blakespear’s attention, leading to her proposal last week.
“It is really my desire to make sure that wild places stay wild, and not be having to resort to lethal measures like killing bears or killing wolves,” Blakespear said, while speaking with CBS LA. “We need to have a program that is up and going so we can be educating people.”
The program calls for focus on public education, maintaining a statewide incident reporting system and deploying devices like barriers, noise and light machines and other technology that would deter predators from places where they shouldn’t be.
SB 1135 passed on a 5-1 vote and will now be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
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